From Parisian alcoholic Maurice Utrillo to Japan's own polka-dot diva Yayoi Kusama, I would guess that the list of artists who have actually lived in mental institutions is just about as long as the list of painters (Picasso, Dubuffet) who regularly hung around them looking for inspiration, searching for a new way of seeing.
Installation view of Minako Saitoh's "Memory" (2001)In a sense, Minako Saitoh has reversed the perspective with the new work from her "Memory" series, now at the Viewing Room in Tokyo's Yotsuya. The show does not look into a mental institute; rather it uses the institution as a place from which to view the outside world -- or at least little pieces of it.
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